1 To cite: Arora. P. (forthcoming). Urban metaphors as architects of the internet: In M. Doueihi (Ed) Digital Cultures, Hermann. URBAN METAPHORS AS ARCHITECTS OF DIGITAL CULTURE Payal Arora INTRODUCTION When we embark on studying digital culture, there is an assumption of novelty to this new terrain. However, there is no such thing as absolute novelty. The fact is that we continue to conceptualize digital culture through metaphors to make the unfamiliar familiar to us. To understand the changing dynamics of digital culture today, it is worth considering the shifts in the way we speak about these internet spaces through specific metaphors. In doing so, we will recognize how the complex history of social practice comes to play in comprehending the diverse and vibrant digital geographies and the challenges we face with these new spaces of inhabitation. The Internet has indeed matured. The nature of this transformation is both social and technical in nature, marked by a plethora of digital platforms and user-generated content. The shift in emphasis is from access to connectivity. In the nascent years of social media, there was much celebration of these spaces as democratic, open and non-utilitarian and in fact, leisure-oriented. Interestingly, similar rhetoric was used to describe the rise of the public park in the late 18th and early 19th century, a time where carving such spaces for the masses was seen as radical and a signal for a new age of egalitarianism and democracy. Urban parks emerged from a protracted struggle with the state and imperial powers. There was much euphoria about these urban commons and their seemingly unregulated and public character. The parks heralded modernity and a new age of civility. They were places